A Darkness Absolute (Rockton 2)

"Because he took that woman. Kept her in a cave. I saw him in the storm. Running from you and him." He glances at Anders. "Then he disappeared, and you found the girl. The one he took. I heard you say she'd been kept in a cave. So I knew that's why you were chasing him."

My heart sinks as I realize what's happened. I say, "And then you chased him. From where?"

"The forest. I went looking. For him. To help you. I saw him. He ran."

"You chased him here?"

He nods. "He was already heading this way. By accident. So I helped. I'd asked around. I knew that was the right thing. You'd handle it here. You have police here. This is where he needed to go."

"Shit," Anders murmurs.

Shit, indeed.

I keep interrogating Roger, but after that brief spurt of semilucidity, he fades fast. I try to ask if he was the one in my house that night. I try to ask if he has a dark snowmobile suit. I try to ask every damned question I have, but he falls into drugged confusion, mumbling about someone named Benjamin and, yep, that's where I lose any hope of getting something sensible from him. I'll have to wait until tomorrow.

*

We're in the Red Lion eating dinner. It closed nearly an hour ago, but when we walked in with no clue about the time, the staff insisted on staying to make us dinner. Now they've gone home and the three of us are alone in the restaurant, eating venison steaks by the light of a single flickering candle.

"So, it seems we have a tragic case of mistaken identity," I say as I cut into my meat.

Dalton grunts.

"Double mistaken identity," Anders says. "Roger sees us chasing Shawn and then later escorting Nicole. He overhears enough to know she was being held captive and jumps to the conclusion that's why we were chasing Shawn. Because Shawn must have taken Nicole. Then Roger spots Shawn escaping from Nicole's real captor and goes after him. Shawn figures Roger is his captor and keeps running toward Rockton, which is conveniently where Roger wants him to go. Roger figures he's saved the day, turning in a killer. And what does he get for it? Attacked by Shawn. Which leaves us..."

"Absolutely fucking nowhere," Dalton says. "The real culprit is still on the run. Nicole's still missing. And we still have--" He stops himself.

"No idea whodunit," I say. "A detective who's running in circles, ending up nowhere."

"No." He catches my look as I reach for my beer. "No."

"We've had a setback," Anders says. "That's all. What we need is another round of these"--he points at our beers--"and then a really good sleep."

*

I'm sitting on the deck off Dalton's bedroom. He's asleep inside. I managed to shore up my spirits after my pity party at the Lion. He kept watching for a relapse, but we finished the meal and the second round of beers and retrieved Storm, and if I seemed to have moved past that, he wasn't going to bring it up.

I hadn't moved past. I just don't do pity parties very well. So I fake-crashed into sleep, and once he'd drifted off, I crept out to the deck. Storm followed, and now we're huddled under a mountain of blankets, listening to the sounds of the forest.

Only about ten minutes pass bef

ore the door squeaks. I start to rise, but Dalton lowers himself beside me.

"We'll go inside," I say. "I just needed a minute."

He puts his leg over mine, keeping me in place. "Seems like you need a few more than that."

"I don't. I'm sorry. I hate whining and complaining."

"Yeah, you do a lot of that. It's hard to hear myself think, much less sleep. You gotta keep it down." He pushes against my hip, arm sliding behind me, leg still over mine, Storm adjusting to lie over both our laps. "Your idea of whining, Casey, is a split-second whimper, followed by five minutes of apologies for disturbing anyone."

"I feel like I'm whining."

"That's a whole different thing." He shifts closer, pulling me against him. "Back at the Lion, I was venting. You gotta let me do that without twisting it into criticism. You know it's not."

I nod.

"You ready to come inside?"